Now 'tis louder, but the powder When the music's nearly through, Is to muster all your muscle for a bang, Give the bass an awful whang, 126. The Countryman and the Lawyer. A lawyer in the Common Pleas,1 In bullying, bantering, browbeating, Women or other timid folks, In a late cause resolved to hoax one Who, by his uncouth look and gait, So, having tipped the wink to those In the back rows, 1 Common Pleas (i.e., Common | ordinary suits between parties are Pleadings) is the court in which tried. Who kept their laughter bottled down And went to work. "Well, Farmer Numskull, how go calves at York?" 66 Why not, sir, as they do wi' you, But on four legs instead of two." "Officer!" cried the legal elf,1 Piqued at the laugh against himself, "Do, pray, keep silence down below there. Now look at me, clown, and attend: Have I not seen you somewhere, friend? "Ye-es very like I often go there." "Our rustic's waggish quite laconic," The lawyer cried, with grin sardonic: "I wish I'd known this prodigy, This genius of the clods, when I, 3 On circuit, was at York residing. In the West Riding?" 5 "Why, no, sir, no: we've got our share, But not so many as when you were there." 1 elf, here meaning trickster. 2 like = likely. 3 sardonic, mocking and bitter. tour from court to court made by a judge or lawyer. 5 West Riding, one of the three judicial districts of Yorkshire. 127.- Rienzi to the Romans. The following is an extract from the drama of "Rienzi," by Miss Mary Russell Mitford, the English authoress. Cola di Rienzi, known as the last of the Roman tribunes," was born in Rome about 1312. In 1347 he stirred up the people to revolt against the Roman nobles, and he himself assumed regal power under the ancient Roman title of "tribune." His career, however, was brief, and he was assassinated in 1354. Friends! I come not here to talk. Ye know too well But base, ignoble slaves! slaves to a horde Rich in some dozen paltry villages; Strong in some hundred spearmen; only great In that strange spell, a name! Each hour, dark fraud, Or open rapine, or protected murder, Cries out against them. But this very day, An honest man, my neighbor, there he stands, Was struck, struck like a dog, by one who wore The badge of Orsini! because, forsooth, He tossed not high his ready cap in air, 1 petty... despots. Rome was | whose houses were fortified castles, in the early part of the fourteenth and whose dependants kept the city century a prey to factions of nobles, in a constant turmoil. Nor lifted up his voice in servile shouts, At sight of that great ruffian! Be we men, Such shames are common. I have known deeper wrongs. I, that speak to ye, Full of all gentleness, of calmest hope, Of sweet and quiet joy: there was the look Was greater than a king! And once again, MITFORD. 128.- Home. There is a land, of every land the pride, |